


john 5:20

by angelicpdf



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Christian Themes, Eating Disorders, Gen, Psychiatric Hospitals, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester Has an Eating Disorder, Sam Winchester's Faith, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28182972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelicpdf/pseuds/angelicpdf
Summary: "In famine he will redeem you from death."Unedited.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 37





	john 5:20

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily based on my own experience at a mental health facility and it may be unrealistic in terms of the time it takes to begin to heal from an eating disorder. The timeline in this fic is vague at best. Anyways, be wary when reading and heed the tags as always.

Sam prays and whispers his way to cleanliness, maybe even holiness, over the crusted trashcan where he shoves the last meal Dean made for him. There is an itch in the back of Sam’s throat, and he thinks it's been there since Jess died, for fifteen years, maybe more. He wants to crawl into a puddle of blankets and let the world melt. He wants to melt. Nowadays his skin is pulled tight and his cheekbones poke at his face, like needles pinching at fabric. His stomach is bloated and his nails chipped. His hair falls out daily. Fifteen years and nothing has changed. The thing that tells him that this is fine and that this evil under his skin is healthy, starts to tell him that he needs to die. He agrees. Spends his nights praying and wishing his body was worthy enough to even take communion, to feel the body and the blood enter him as he proves his devotion to the Lord. 

Sleep eludes Sam on the nights before the attempt and his body aches like every part is a phantom limb. The night of, he reaches for his bible but topples over himself. He shatters and hears something break, he hopes it's a limb, something tangible and real, but the poison in his veins isn’t meant to keep away the pain. Eventually, through the haziness of his own predestination, he looks to see the glass from his vase of flowers, a sunflower and rose bouquet Eileen gave him. It’s scattered on the hardwood and his fingers search for purchase on the smoothness only to find nothing. Sam hears himself muttering and doesn’t know what he’s saying, but he hopes it's a Hail Mary, hopes that he’s close enough to death that he’ll get a free pass onto the Amtrak to salvation. He thinks he sees God. He thinks he feels something warm and kind covering him and asking him what he was thinking, what was a child of God doing at Death’s door like this. He thinks about the itch in the back of his throat and how he never told anyone but God. 

The ambulance is a blurry memory, filled with his aching body screaming for something, anything to take him away from his body. Sam thinks he feels someone hold his hand, he thinks someone tells him “Everything will be alright.” Sam refuses to believe it, but holds on anyways, and he lets himself believe that if he does then maybe, maybe he will be saved. 

The first morning at the hospital, no one is allowed to visit and he hopes to god that no one knows and that Dean kept his mouth shut even with Eileen. He wishes that everyone that has ever known him has suddenly forgotten that his life is still up for grabs. Doctor after doctor and nurse after nurse come in, for vitals, for questions, for comfort. Sam wants none of it. Nothing good will come from it, he thinks, he knows. 

Sam is to be taken from the hospital and into a psychiatric ward for a mandatory seventy two hour hold. Dean is silent, stoic as the doctor announces it in the sterile white room in the ER. Dean and him don’t talk about it. It’s decided that Sam will go, that Sam will get better. That this is something Dean can’t fix and something that no amount of love or metaphorical bandaids could even begin to cover up. Sam’s second ambulance ride is shared with a pair of EMTs that point out that the sun is coming up. 

Sam arrives at the ward just as the world turns a murky pink and he wants nothing more than to evaporate. He wants to punch something and he feels the rage bubbling up. Before he’s moved he whispers a silent prayer for his EMTs and maybe a little for himself. His body is wheeled into the building via wheelchair and he feels like a corpse, his hands laying motionless on the armrests. He thinks that they should be carting in a dead body, not the caved in and decrepit man he is and that is somehow still breathing. 

That morning passes by in a blur, more doctors, new people, a tube in his nose. He sees a girl wearing bunny slippers walk into the ward with handcuffs, he scoffs when another guy says something lewd about what he’d like to do with her. She winks at Sam, all dark curls that remind him too much of Ruby, and lets the police officer by her side walk her to the nurse’s desk. 

The hours pass, and the girl is obnoxiously present at their midday meal, the guys are stuttering over their words when she sits at their table, she looks at Sam’s plate, barely touched, and it stops him from whispering grace, even though he has no plans to eat the meal. He notices that her hands are no longer cuffed.  
“You should eat, I bet I could see your ribs under that shirt, and I bet that tube isn’t doing much.” She says with a deadpan and then a smile. He seethes (wants to tear out the tube and shove it down her throat) and feels the itch again, like it’s asking him to reach inside his own body and show her exactly how rotten the meat on his ribs really is. She laughs at something another patient says and Sam, well, he promptly feels the edges of his vision become blurry and he lets the ringing in his ears grow louder. He thinks if he doesn’t focus too hard it sounds like the hymns he used to hear Jessica sing. It’s calming and he hopes he scares the girl with her stupid curls and her stupid slippers and stupid words. 

Hours later, again, Sam wakes up to his nurse muttering about blood pressure. Everything seems to come crashing down. His palm looks raw and he has to clench and unclench his fingers just to feel something besides static underneath his skin. He has lived like this for years, he has been walking and dying for years. Somehow still, after prayer, after begging he couldn’t finish the job and looking at the nurse, her concern exuded in waves. Sam is overwhelmed with gratitude as he sees the nurse work on fixing his tube, and he thinks for a moment that maybe he could do something too, something to ease the ache in his head and maybe help people. At the thought of changing something, big or small, about his life, he smiles for the first time in weeks. The tug of his lips is foreign. His ache doesn’t subside, but it lessens its hold on his chest and the itch stutters for a moment. The nurse walks away and leaves Sam to his own devices. His life seems to be his own, even just a little bit, for once. 

At dinner he doesn’t eat, but he drinks a frozen Ensure that burns like holy water as it goes down and quietly sits in the longue. He drinks two more Ensures that day. More calories than he’s had in ages. The nurse that gives him the drinks says she’s proud of Sam. He wants to vomit as the ache, the itch in his throat seems to burn, but he smiles and thanks her. Sam drinks another three Ensures the next day. 

The 72 hour hold is over. Dean speaks with him and another doctor for two hours, they go back and forth for half an hour before even asking Sam what he wants. Again, he almost wants to punch something but he plays with a stress ball instead, ignoring the static and the urge to press into his palm. The doctor finally asks what he would like to do now, if he’d like to stay a few more days. Sam looks at Dean, worried to the point of unshed tears and he thinks about Ensures and prayers and he says “Why not?” 

The meeting is over and Dean promises to bring clothes and a book. Comfort objects for his little brother that has made the choice to save his own life. 

He drinks another Ensure and eats a slice of toast. He sees the girl with the curls and gives her the middle finger as he takes another slice. It feels less like burning holy water and a little more like choice with every bite. 

Weeks pass and Sam is released, the tube is taken out of his nose and his body is less skin and bones. Sam doesn’t talk to Dean about it, but the consensus is clear that he’s on another path now, a path with a real opportunity, an opportunity for something better. He still prays for his own salvation, but slowly his skin stops being pinched between bone and the itch at the back of his throat seems to collapse in on itself and die. Sam doesn’t see the woman again but he thinks often of her and her unintentional words and his response. He hates her a little bit but thinks about how he hates himself and his twisted ideas of what’s okay for him to try to achieve. But most days he thinks he’s getting somewhere and maybe it’s somewhere good, somewhere that he never thought he would get to see. He’s almost hopeful. 

The sky is a murky pink when Sam is released from the ward, and the of the memory of EMTs makes his lips quirk into a small smile. The itch in the back of his throat doesn’t speak up, doesn’t make itself known, and Sam takes it for the saving grace it is. He takes it as freedom, as the beginning of finding true salvation.


End file.
